The international reference texts are the international conventions and treaties to which France is a contracting party and those reference texts and recommendations concerning nuclear safety and radiation protection that are not formally binding.

Convention on Nuclear Safety

The Convention on Nuclear Safety concerns civil nuclear power reactors. It sets a number of safety objectives and defines the measures intended to achieve them. The contracting countries commit in particular to:

establish a legislative, regulatory and administrative framework that meets the aims of the Convention and enables them to fulfil their obligations;

establish an independent regulation and oversight organisation that has sufficient authority, competence and human and financial resources.

France has decided of its own volition to also include in its national report the measures taken for all civil research reactors which are subject to the same general regulations as the civil nuclear power reactors with regard to safety and radiation protection.

The Convention provides for the organisation of triennial "review meetings" of the contracting parties, which are intended to develop cooperation and the sharing of experience. A review meeting is organised every three years. A few months prior to the “review meeting”, each contracting party submits a report presenting the measures taken to implement the obligations of the Convention. During the meeting, each report presented is discussed with the other contracting parties who can ask additional questions. A summary report drawn up by the meeting chairman and made public presents the progress achieved and any difficulties that subsist.

Adopted in 1994 by the IAEA member states, the Convention on Nuclear Safety was approved by France on 13th September 1995. It entered into effect on October 24, 1996. Since March 31, 2005 it has been ratified by all the countries operating nuclear power reactors. As of January 2016, it had been ratified by 78 contracting parties.

The 7th “review meeting” is scheduled from 27 March to 7 April 2017 in Vienna .

The French national reports can be consulted in their French and English versions

The 6th report (2014)

The report of the 2nd extraordinary meeting (2012)

As decided during the 5threview meeting of the Convention on Nuclear Safety held in April 2011, an extraordinary meeting of the CSN will take place in Vienna in August 2012. One objective is to review and share the lessons learned and the steps taken by the CSN Contracting Parties in response to the events of the accident that struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP). As part of this extraordinary meeting, a national report was issued by each of the Contracting Parties, based on the 6 topics identified (external events, design studies, severe accident management (on site), national organization, off-site organization in emergency and post-accident situations, international cooperation). It presents and describes the measures taken or envisaged, along with the scheduled completion dates.

The 1st report (1999)

The French Nuclear Safety Authority is tasked, on behalf of the State, with regulating nuclear safety and radiation protection in order to protect workers, patients, the public and the environment from the risks involved in nuclear activities in France. It also contributes to informing the citizens.